Author: John Roberts

Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire was an airport pickup. As you might expect, this historical fiction re-telling the tale of the battle of Thermopylae got a boost from the successful movie 300. This book didn’t improve upon the movie, but history needs personality to stay alive, and this “first person” account keeps the basics straight while adding plenty of imagined color. And blood and guts, of course. Not pure history, but Herodotus can wait.

After the original announcement on June 23rd, and some revisions tested starting July 14th, CNET’s redesign is open to all as of yesterday, August 27th. See for yourself at CNET.com, CNET News, and CNET Download.com. Congrats to all who worked on it. I’ve had my say kibitzing from the outside; I also know how much work went into it.

I’m impressed by the deliberate, public nature of the changes, and the aesthetic is fine, if not as iconic as yellow and green.

One design quibble: I find the lowercasing of “news” and “download.com” to be affected, especially given that text references continue to capitalize, but whatever. But I’m grateful the unnecessary reflection on the sub-brands of CNET News and Download.com was dropped from the design. News uses the CNET favicon, as it has forever. I noticed that Download.com got to keep its favicon, a slightly smaller version of this:

One navigation quibble: the tour pop-up should have its own visible, linkable URL. It’s found at http://www.cnet.com/html/cnet/tour/tour1.html. Works well on its own, without need for scrolling.

I am still waiting, however, for the change of News.com to its broader CBS usage. That team must still be hard at work, not yet enjoying pizza and beer.

The Dark Knight is still packing the IMAX theater here in San Francisco. We finally made it to the film. Big, long, full, and bold. The “excursion” to Hong Kong was a bit Jason Bourne-ish (which I like, but not in character) but otherwise, quite a headlong story. Whomever has to play the Joker in future films has an impossible act to follow. 82 from Metacritic works for me.

I have not cancelled my Netflix account, so I was able to watch Pan’s Labyrinth, the DVD I’ve had out for months. (I missed the shipping fun by just a few days.)

The mélange of history and fantasy shines. The division between the saturated color of the imagination and the stark faded light of Franco’s Spain underlines how people’s minds work hard to find something positive in even the worst situations.

Quite an imaginative film, but #4 on Metacritic’s all-time list with a 98? Not so fast. I’d recommend the movie to most anyone, but glad my expectations weren’t escalated too high ahead of time.

(Still pondering “blog bankruptcy” for the 17 — and rising — books I’ve read but not blogged. Sigh…)

Hybrids by Robert J. Sawyer is the third and final book in The Neanderthal Parallax, exploring the imagined interaction between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens via parallel universes. Hybrids completes what began in Hominids and continued in Humans.

Once again, Sawyer delves into where science and religion mix, this time “finding” the God organ in the human brain via its absence in the Neanderthal brain. Also, the military-industrial complex in human affairs comes into play, as part of general concern/suspicion about inter-species warfare if the portal between the two parallel universes is kept open indefinitely. Months after the fact, I can’t summon enthusiasm for this book, even though I enjoyed it at the time.

I will continue to read Sawyer, though, and when I find time to note Rollback, you’ll know why.

Humans by Robert J. Sawyer is the second book in The Neanderthal Parallax, a set of three novels exploring interaction between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens via parallel universes. Humans picks up from its beginnings in Hominids.

The story is a bit dialog-heavy. The conversations between the Neanderthal male named Ponter and a human woman named Mary (with all the name’s religious overtones) move the story along somewhat, but mostly give Sawyer mouthpieces for admittedly interesting comments on religion, science, politics and culture.

The Vietnam chapter includes this admirable idea, however unrealistic, about declaring war.

[Political leaders declaring war] should do it right here,” said Ponter, flatly. “Their leader — the president, no? — he should declare war right here, standing in front of these fifty-eight thousand, two hundred and nine names. Surely that should be the purpose of such a memorial: if a leader can stand and look at the names of all those who died a previous time a president declared war and still call for young people to go off and be killed in another war, then perhaps the war is worth fighting.

I’ve read worse ideas.

Dan Farber previewed the next phase of CNET’s rolling redesign in today’s blog post. See the full image of CNET News here.

My previous comments hold. The body of the home page looks fine, with no complaints. However, I find the reflection in the sub-brands of “News” and “Download.com” quite distracting, and hard to read. The Web 2.0 reflection will be very dated in the near future, too.

Download.com new logo design

CNET News new logo design…without the .com

Larger question highlighted by these sub-brand treatments: how long until CBS Interactive puts the domain news.com in the service of general news?

Today’s preview includes a .com for the download design, but it’s notably absent for news. Also, www.news.com redirects to news.cnet.com now. For too long, news.com redirected to the never-beloved news.com.com (long story…not now). For a few brief weeks earlier this year, before the CBS deal, the tech news site reclaimed its original 1996 home at www.news.com. It was quickly switched over to news.cnet.com. The pendulum of parent brands vs. individual brands swings back and forth at CNET, but it’s clear this time news.com is being prepped for bigger things.

This change makes sense, since News.com is just too tempting a domain name to limit to tech news, especially given the broader portfolio of the new CBS Interactive. But stop dribbling this change out. Get the team working on the new News.com in higher gear before these design changes dampen the, well, news.

My comments are as a fan and former employee, but no inside information.

Saw Wall•E last night, just a few hours after the rest of the family. With a 94 on Metacritic, Wall•E is in the top 15 of all time so far. Hmmm… maybe I’d heard too many hosannahs before seeing it. Fun film, but not ready to dub it an all-time favorite just yet. After the movie, though, the Buy n Large website helps you keep snickering…especially the disclaimer.

I’m one of the many whose upgrade to the 2.0 version of the iPhone software is hanging this morning. Ouch. Not supposed to disconnect phone, and can’t use the phone until the upgrade is complete. Follow the mayhem at TechMeme.

2 hours later…I’m back in business.

Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer opens The Neanderthal Parallax, a set of three novels exploring interaction between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens via parallel universes, where the big lugs didn’t die out…and weren’t such lugs. As always, Sawyer makes science human. Jumping off from a quantum physics experiment gone slightly askew, Sawyer blends in jealous ex-spouses, a murder trial, and (surprisingly) a rape of one of the lead characters. Science is the twist, but not the main course. Musings on the intersection of science and religion also flow into the tale, sometimes ponderously.

The problem? I read this story about three months ago, and I had to skim the flap to remind myself of some of the core elements. So, a quick enjoyable read, but not lasting. Or maybe that’s just me. 😉

Anyway, props to Vin for sending me a box of books that arrived (coincidentally) around my birthday back in March. Hominids was the first snack among many from the sci-fi-heavy grouping.